Off-duty Police Cars Off-limits In Campaigns

March 7, 1992|By KIM MARGOLIS, Staff Writer

CORAL SPRINGS -- Off-duty police officers were ordered on Friday not to drive their police cars to campaign activities after Mayor Jeanne Mills` supporters claimed police union members had harassed them as both groups waved political signs at city intersections.

Mills said her campaign workers were verbally harassed on Thursday and Friday by police officers, as both groups campaigned at the intersections. The officers, Mills said, also wrote down the license plate numbers of her campaign workers` cars.

The officers, wearing civilian clothes, were waving signs for Mills` opponent in the mayoral race, Janet Oppenheimer, and for City Commission candidates Alan Polin and Ralph Diaz, all endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police.

City Manager Edwin ``Buz`` Eddy and John Wynn, a city attorney, said city policy says city employees cannot drive city-owned vehicles to campaign events even if they are off-duty. The policy, adopted in January 1990, also forbids city employees from waving signs or wearing pins while on duty or putting bumper stickers on their assigned vehicles.

Many Coral Springs police officers use squad cars while they are off-duty because the Police Department has a vehicle take-home policy to increase police visibility.

But officers are not prohibited from any political activity when they are off-duty and out of uniform.

``If the officers drive to the location in their personal, private vehicles and they`re off duty, they can wave till their arms fall off,`` Wynn said.

Employees who do not follow the political participation policy could be fired, according the city`s administrative policy manual.

Jim Milford, a city police officer and Fraternal Order of Police representative, said Mills` workers only complained because the union doesn`t support their candidate.

``Had the FOP chose to endorse Jeanne Mills, this wouldn`t be an issue right now,`` Milford said.

Mark Richards, attorney for the FOP, said the city`s policy takes away the employees` constitutional right of free speech just because they are driving a city-owned vehicle. He said the officers` vehicles are being parked far enough from them that no one would know they were police officers.

Eddy denied that employees were losing their constitutional rights.

``It`s not that at all,`` he said. ``We`re not discouraging them from engaging in politics. We just want them to understand they can`t use city equipment in the process.``